Thursday evening, April 3, 2008, at the UofU Marriott Hotel, approximately 200 people listened to their group leadership and expressed opposition to a proposed use of the water in Bear Lake for middle man money making scheme. During the night, water would be pumped at a rate approaching the flow of the Colorado River to a new reservoir to be built atop a nearby mountain east of the lake. During the day, the water would be gated to flow back to the lake powering generating turbines making electricity that would be put back into the electric grid. In other words, coal power would be exchanged for hydroelectric power by the assumption that electricity sold during the day is worth more than the operating expenses of pumping with electricity made by burning coal at night.

This is likely to be an ecological nightmare and is not likely to be profitable. Besides, to slow global warming, we should not be burning more coal.

The world is approaching its end of oil. We are going to have to begin to manufacture a replacement fuel. This will be nuclear-hydrogen. This fall, indicators are implying that General Motors, Ford, Daimler Benz, and Honda will begin to sell hydrogen powered cars. For fuel, the automakers and Westinghouse will sell home installed electric powered systems for electrically separating water into oxygen and hydrogen. These home fuel generation plants that will be running at night will end today‚s differential price for use of electricity.

Everyone wants an alternative. By 2012, in only four years, half of the vehicles being driven in the U.S. could be running on hydrogen. This would require the electricity of 400 new nuclear power plants making electricity. Gasoline could be priced at $12 per gallon from oil costing $300 per barrel, which will force the use of hydrogen instead of oil. We will be grossly short on electricity. Nuclear-hydrogen must get built. Lets get serious and not continue playing games.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/Chapter5.pdf:
http://www.endofoil.us
http://www.spentnuclearfuel.com
William "Bill" D Peterson

April 4, 2008
Dear neighbors:

I am writing to share with you my deep feelings of interest in the proposed Hook  Canyon Hydroelectric Project. I first became aware of this through the efforts of Bear Lake Watch directors, Claudia and David Cottle. Their notification was very professional and provided much information as well as referring me to several web sites that I could access and receive more facts and information.

I visited those sites, including the Symbiotics LLC site, and I have become somewhat knowledgeable about the proposed project. I have formulated some questions that I believe you and those you work with in government must seriously ask and receive honest and correct answers to in order to make your decision concerning the approval or denial of this project.

Are we really, in this part of the state, that close on our available power to our demand and future needs that we need to jeopardize this beautiful “natural” lake by applying this extreme method of generating power?  Where will the power being generated by this project be sold or utilized?  If it is for the areas of Southern Utah, Nevada, and California as I believe it is would it not make more sense to locate a facility closer to the using facilities such as at Lake Powell or Lake Mead. These are both man made lakes and as such have larger bodies of water to absorb the adverse effects of draw down and fill up on the daily basis.

Can the lake ecosystem as well as the recreational uses handle the great draw down (three inches in lake level every ten to twelve hours) and fill up. That will cause drastic currents that could be dangerous to recreation activity and who knows what effect that will have on the beaches and property owners.

I believe it is important for the public to know who are the entities (and individuals) who are to gain by this project. We know of Symbiotics, LLC, but where are the “billions” coming from to finance the great amount of construction that will be needed and who will take away the billions that will eventually be theirs as they have sole control over the power supply and they then hold the public hostage for their “higher priced peak daytime power” at the expense of a beautiful lake that cannot be reclaimed.

It is important to know whether the “dollar” is the major factor with the many who make decisions  -- for example, the land where the upper reservoir is to be created is public school trust lands – will big bucks cause them to cave in and allow this to proceed, even against better judgment? Do they have a fiduciary responsibility to the public to make sure the sources of income from the land leases or sales come from uses that benefit all and not from a speculative experiment for a few venture capitalists?

In Symbiotics LLC web site it shows several other types of water and generation projects with some examples of each. The “pumped storage – generation” type project (proposed) for Hook Canyon is the only one of its kind, apparently, that they have or are involved in. I would like to have some reports on other facilities to show the actual results of this type of project before we gamble with this lake on this venture.

The principals listed on the Symbiotics LLC web site apparently have credentials that should be impressive with this type of project. I find it incredible that they are so willing to proceed (and have proceeded) so quickly (and quietly) in hopes of pushing this through without the public knowing and being able to react. There must be really big bucks behind this project.

The principals’ statement about the project utilizes some generalizations and assumptions that I believe must be challenged for rock solid proof. I am not an engineer or a fish biologist but I have managed a construction company for over thirty years and have been involved in some major construction projects. I have developed a great deal of “common sense” and that tells me we are not being told the “whole story.” 

I have read much of the PAD and the SD. I am very distressed that they mentioned fish, and the benefits of “clean, green” power production and how bad the coal and other types of generation of electricity are. They did not even acknowledge that the recreational benefits of this quality lake are just as important factors and of equal or greater weight when evaluating this project.

I encourage you to go the web sites and look through the aforementioned documents. You will see what I mean. Attend the scoping meeting and make your voices heard.

Theo W. Thomson
Recreational Landowner – Garden City (for 60 years)
President of “Tec” Electric Co.
Logan, UT  84321

Some calculations and comparisons regarding the Hook Canyon project on Bear Lake:

Bear Lake is 7 X 18 miles in size, Lake Tahoe 12 X 22 miles.  No pumped storage faclities on Lake Tahoe.

Hook Canyon generatin capacity is 1,120 Mega Watts (MW), or 1/2 of Hoover Dam (2,074 MW), 1 Glen Canyon dam of Lake Powell (1,300 MW) or 7 Flaming Rogre dams.

Energy net loss for Hook Canyon of 811 GWh (giga watt hours) will require an additional energy plant output of 278 MW while pumping the water to the upper reservoir, the equivalent output of 2 Flaming Gorge dams or 185 wind turbines (1.5 MW each).  Even if averaged out over a 24 hour period, because of the construction of Hook Canyon, somewhere on the grid, there will be needed another Flaming Gorge dam or about 100 wind turbines.  Who will build, subsidize and pay for this additional capacity needed?  Somebody else, somewhere else....

The size of the tailrace to be entering Bear Lake will be 30 feet in diameter.  The Chunnel between France and Britian has tunnels of 25 feet in diameter.  The Holland and Lincoln Tunnels in Manhattan, New York are about 21 feet in diameter.  The Provo Canyon tunnel near Sundance is about 32 feet.  A mamoth structure will need to be build IN Bear Lake to accept this tunnel and disperse the water flow.

The Hook Canyon project will discharge 18,000 to 25,000 cubic feet per second into Bear Lake.  This is equivalent to 5 to 7 TIMES the MAX. June snow-melt flow of the entire Bear River.  This will move in and out of Bear Lake EVERY DAY.

Attached is a photo of the Ludington, Michigan pumped-storage unit.  Notice the sediment disruption.  And note that Lake Michigan is 200 X the size of Bear Lake.  Also, every spring a 2.5 mile fish net is put in place to keep fish from entering the intake and the net is removed every fall because of storms and ice on Lake Michigan.  Since the Ludington, Michigan project is only a bit bigger (1.8 GW compared to 1.1 for HooK Canyon) we should expect a 2 mile long net in place at Bear Lake.  That's almost from North to South Eden.

Also attached are articles from a recent San Diego Log, a boating newspaper for California.  Note that Pyramid Lake, the lower reservoir for a pumped storage project, needs to have sediment removed and the boat ramps are closed.  Who will pay to remove sediment from Bear Lake Marina and other areas? Sediment would need to be removed at low water, August, Sept. Oct. impacting use of the marina and surrounding areas.

The other article attached describes the closing of Casitas Lake in California due to quagga mussel treat.  Quagga and zebra mussels were brought into the Great Lakes by a foreign commercial vessel that discharged contaminated ballast water.  The quagga and zebra mussels have been spreading all over the country.  They are tiny and clog cooling systems on boats, power plants and feed on tiny plankton that small organisms in the lakes need to produce food for the fish.

Besides the treat of one of the Bear Lake fish being listed as endangered, it could be conceived that if the Hook Canyou project were to be build and quagga and zebra mussel transmission to the lake is forseen, then the power company could make an arguement to restrict boating on the lake to those who keep their boats on the lake.  That would kill tourism / boating.  See the article.

Also, check out www.wikipedia.org and type in Bear Lake, Utah.  It is listed and described as the "Caribbean of the Rockies."  People all over the world use Wikipedia and learn of the uniqeness of Bear Lake.

I think that we all have more to loose that to gain with this Hook Canyon porject.  Synbiotics should seek to build a two reservoir, land-based system like in Virginia.  Then Bear Lake would not be impacted.

There are other alternatives to pumped storage.  There is in-ground compressed air where the off-peak electricity is used to pressurize underground chambers / rock formations with air and upon release it turn turbines.  There are huge flywheels that are spun up to speed with off-peak electricity and there are supercapacitors.

There is so much to this project, it will take many, many people to address all the issues.

Take care,

Dale Kern